>> that's a meth lab right there. >> reporter: grellner has seen the worst. trapped a meth maker's daughter inside. luckily, the guy broke a window and pulled her out. >> he's no hero in my book. he's a guy that got very, very lucky he didn't kill his child that day. >> reporter: grellner himself has paid a price. >> this is the actual one-pot bottle. this is the most dangerous part. >> reporter: lung damage from chemicals at a meth lab. >> i carry inhalers around with me now. i take two or three different medications a day. i end up hospitalized one or two times a year. >> reporter: but it hasn't stopped him from leading a battle to turn off the faucet for meth labs. the key ingredient for making meth, pseudoephedrine, can be extracted from some decongestants and then chemically altered. >> if we remove one oxygen atom, we reduce that pseudoephedrine hydrochloride by one oxygen atom, we go from this to this. >> reporter: pseudoephedrine used to require a doctor's prescription. but in 1976 the fda allowed it over the counter. today all you have to do is show

but sergeant grellner says the

. >> reporter: last year grellner recruited freshman missouri state representative dave schatz to sponsor a prescription bill. chpa won again. with newspaper and radio ads, phone banks and lobbyists. >> well, i wasn't prepared for that. i didn't realize that you would walk into an issue like that with that strong of an opposition and how powerful they were. >> tell us how many grams were in the box. >> reporter: chpa's solution is an electronic data base. it tracks retail pseudoephedrine sales. and chpa actually paid to put it in place. it's called nplex. if someone tries to buy more than the legal limit, nplex red flags the sale to block it. >> so it says that exceeds your gram purchase limit. >> obviously, when we put this technology in place, our hope is that it would drive down the meth labs. >> reporter: but last year the number of meth lab busts in missouri was up. nearly 7%. in part because meth makers are still using straw buyers. law enforcement in missouri tells us that meth labs are going up because crooks are circumventing nplex. >> criminals are always going to find ways to g